Follow-up to Yoga Breathing for What Ails You

I was glancing through Harvard Medical School's online dictionary of complementary/alternative medical terms when I came across the listing for yoga. The listing summarizes research done on how yoga has been effective in treating a variety of ailments, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, and other mood problems.

Even the smarty-pants doctors at Harvard say: Remember to Breathe!

Breathing In What You Need, Out What You Don't

I was reminded of a great breathing technique in my yoga class the other day, so I thought I'd share it here. Alternate nostril breathing is easy to do and takes just a minute of your time (though you might end up spending several minutes a day doing it once you get into the rhythm of it.)

Here's how you do it: Place your thumb and ring finger on either side of your nose. Allow your index and middle fingers to rest between your eyebrows. Start by using your ring finger to close one nostril. Breathe through the remaining open nostril. Now, close the nostril with your thumb (the one you just breathed in through), open your ring finger nostril, and breathe out. Repeat the same process, but in reverse, breathing through your ring finger nostril, and exhaling out the thumb side. Simple, yes?

Once you've got the breathing rhythm down, you can add an intention to your breathing. Ask yourself what do I want to let go of, what do I want to make room for? An anti-anxiety intention might involve breathing in self-confidence, breathing out listening to anxiety. An anti-depression intention could feel like breathing in action, breathing out isolation. A sleep-inducing mantra might involve breathing in sleepiness or heaviness, breathing out restlessness. Breathing in messiness and exhaling perfectionism could fit for someone struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder. You can tailor your intention to fit your unique challenges of the moment. My never-finished intention for acceptance is to breathe in satisfaction for what I have, breathing out envy for what I don't.

You gotta breathe, right? Alternate nostril breathing can take some of the load off of you, and allow your breathing to give something back.

Believing in Change

Here's a little secret about therapy: One of the key factors to therapy's success has nothing to do with the skill or training of your therapist. One's own sense of hope and expectation for change can very well determine therapy's success. Now, any therapist worth her salt should be able to reflect hope and optimism in the face of difficult problems. The important thing to remember about hope is that it can be cultivated in any situation, as long as one chooses to believe.

While hope can help us weather trying situations, it also seems to inoculate against future difficulties. A new study done by researchers at the University of South Carolina suggests that women with strong religious or spiritual ties registered lower rates of postpartum depression than women without them. I'm going to make a leap here and propose that it's the hopefulness associated with a religious and/or spiritual orientation that prevented the seeds of postpartum depression from taking root. That's not to say that all hopeful women won't get PPMDs, or that only pessimists are struck with postpartum mood disorders. What I'm suggesting is that our "immunity" to depressive illnesses gets a boost from an active hopefulness practice. And while susceptibility to depressive illnesses isn't within one's control, cultivating one's own sense of hope and optimism is.

Finally, some hopeful news we can believe in!

Keeping the Anti-Anxiety Beat

I know I've written about taking breaks from anxiety before, but an encounter with the really great folks over at Seattle Drum School in Georgetown got me thinking about the buffering effects of music on anxiety's chatter. When the mind is engaged in counting out triplets with one hand and sixteenth notes in the other, there's not much mental room left for anxiety. (Okay, so I'm not a drummer--except for in my dreams--but at least that's how it seemed to me back when I played Chopin on the piano. Or maybe I just have less "mental room" than others!) It seems to me that when the mind and body are fully engaged with each other (as in drumming or playing an instrument), there's little opportunity left for anxiety's influence to insinuate itself. And while anxiety and "perfectionism" cures remain elusive, taking much-needed breaks from their chatter is a life-preserving practice.

Sharing Parenting Equally

In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Lisa Belkin wrote a thought-provoking article on "equally shared parenting." The concept behind equally shared parenting is just as it sounds: each parents spends as much time contributing to work, home, and family as the other. While I commend the parents who are engaging in this arrangement, I couldn't help but wonder about the details. How exactly does one track every single contribution in the work, home, and family categories? How does one weigh tasks that are more burdensome than others? Reading about the featured couples, it seemed to me that this arrangement could open itself up to persistent arguments over the division of labor.

One mother, whose family eventually opted out of equally shared parenting, had this to say about her family's experience: "The question should not be, Is it all exactly equal, but, What is best for all of us as a group right now?...If we decide it's really important that we are 50-50 on everything, we would work on that. If we decide it's really important that we be close to family, then we work on that."

Now, that sounds like an arrangement I could live with.

Talking to Your Kids About Financial Anxiety

Growing up in Michigan in the 1980s, my family lived through an especially bleak period of economic history. Though I was in elementary school at the time, I was acutely aware of the economic uncertainty in my corner of the world. Several of my classmates moved to Alaska, California, and the South, their parents unable to find work. My father went through long stretches of unemployment over the course of four years, with stints at work just long enough to prolong his unemployment benefits. I remember the nightly news compared Michigan's unemployment rate with that of the Republic of Ireland's (around 13%, if memory serves--but oh, for Michigan's economy to be compared to the Celtic Tiger's now...)

If you are feeling anxious about your family's financial situation, chances are your children feel it, too. Here are three things you can do with children of all ages to help assuage your family's financial anxiety:

With Toddlers: Just say no. Perhaps you bought special treats for them while out shopping before. You are in charge, and it's okay to say no to purchases you might have made before. When grocery shopping, pack along snacks you know your toddler enjoys to avoid tantrums in the cookie and cracker aisle. And if your toddler screams throughout the store for that special snack, that's okay (albeit, highly irritating). If people glare at you in the store, remind yourself that those looks mean, "that's a parent who knows how to set limits." Good for you!

With elementary-school age kids: They really want to be helpful. They really do. And they understand the ethic of helping their family. Explaining to them that while certain activities might be too expensive (e.g. lavish parties, theme parks, camp), there are lots of ways to have fun or to earn money towards something they'd like to do. Your kids might enjoying organizing a garage sale of their unwanted toys and clothes to put toward something they really want. They can have book or toy swaps with friends to get a new-to-them item. And to help them understand the ways they are fortunate, your family can volunteer at a food bank or homeless shelter. They really, really want to be helpful; they just don't always know how to do the helping.

Tweens and Teens: This age group is hard, no doubt. They are under a lot of pressure to look the "right" way. Let them know that you understand style matters at this age. Also let them understand how much is in your family budget for things like clothes. If they haven't discovered it already, your t(w)een will appreciate how much further her clothing dollar goes at thrift stores. (I just saw a navy pleated mini-skirt with green embroidered skulls at Goodwill that I would have killed for when I was 16 and first discovered the many joys of thrift store shopping.) And speaking of budgets, if your t(w)een is interested, share with them the family budget. Maybe she has ideas for trimming costs. A real go-getter might find you a more competitive rate on insurance or a mortgage, or compare prices online for regular purchases. As the recent mortgage crisis points out, it's never too early to give your children a good financial education.

The Mind-Body Solution

I just took my marriage and family therapy licensing exam today, which reminded me of the importance of being physically well to perform mentally well. During the days leading up to my exam, I took great care to get lots of rest, limit my caffeine intake, drink lots of water, eat healthfully, and make time for exercise. Truly, it's the lifestyle I should lead EVERY week, but today I really did notice a difference. In the past, I've experienced horrible test anxiety, but today I felt a great deal of calm. I sensed I'd prepared myself both physically and mentally well for the test, and I left the testing center feeling I'd done my best. Now, I'll have to wait for my scores to confirm how I did exactly, but for now I feel at peace that my physical and mental preparation kept test anxiety from pestering me today.